Background: Graduate medical   education (GME) bodies are beginning to mandate coaching as an integral part   of the learning process, in addition to current requirements for mentorship.   Once an emergency medicine physician transitions beyond graduate training,   there is no requirement and little focus on coaching as a method of improving   or maintaining clinical practice. Our objective was to understand and   describe the current state of the published literature with regard to the use   of coaching and mentorship for both GME and practicing physicians.

Methods: We conducted a structured   review of the literature through PubMed and Google Scholar and included all   articles applying coaching or mentorship modalities to GME trainees or   practicing physicians. A Google Form was used for standardized data   abstraction. Data were collected pertaining to the settings of intervention,   the nature of the intervention, its effect, and its resource requirements. 

Results: A total of 3,546 papers   were isolated during the literature review. After exclusion, 186 underwent   full-text review by the authors of which 126 articles were included in the   final data analysis. Eighty-two articles (65%) pertained to mentorship and 14   (11%) to coaching; the remainder of the articles discussed a combination or   variation of these two concepts. Fifty-three (42%) articles were descriptive   studies and 35 (28%) were narrative reviews or commentaries. Forty-seven   (37%) articles originated from within surgical specialties and coaching was   most commonly applied to procedural or manual skills with 22 (17%) instances   among all studies. 

Conclusions: Most literature on coaching and mentorship is descriptive or   narrative, and few papers are in the specialty of emergency medicine. Most   interventions are limited to single instances of coaching or mentorship   without longitudinal application of the intervention. There is an important   need to study and publish further evidence on coaching interventions.

Authors: Casey MacKenzie, Teresa M. Chan, Shawn Mondoux